Much has been made in recent days of an apparent gaffe by John McCain. He has suggested, on several occasions that Iran and Al Qaeda are cooperating in Iraq -- even though Iran is a Shiite Muslim country and Al Qaeda a Sunni Muslim organization. Fox News documents the initial fracas:

What strange bedfellows politicians make. Not a year goes by that some elected official, somewhere, isn’t caught up in some salacious scandal. Edwin Edwards, the crooked ex-governor of Louisiana, famously said in 1983, “The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either adead girl or a live boy.” The history of American politics is replete with both -- and then some.

Remember this?

"We know he's out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons and we know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization," Vice President Dick Cheney said of Saddam Hussein on NBC's Meet The Press March 16, 2003.

The tightening of the Democratic race has brought, in recent days, allegations of subliminal dirty tricks in campaign advertising.

About 11 seconds into the Hillary Clinton spot above -- the infamous "3 a.m." advertisement challenging Barack Obama's qualifications -- a child is seen sleeping in alphabet pajamas. Ann Althouse publicized questions raised by a commenter: